“L.S. Given at Verona under Our sign and ordinary seal the 20th April, year of grace 1796, and of Our reign the first.—Louis.”
These conditions of the would-be King of France could not however be complied with. The reply to his demand was only arrived at after a long correspondence had been carried on between the Venetian Republic and the Court of St Petersburg, and was altogether unfavourable to the Count’s wishes. The name of the Bourbons, it said, could not be erased from the Libro d’Oro without causing dire offence to the sovereigns of Spain, Naples, and Parma, all of whom belonged to the family of the Bourbons, nor for the same reason could the armour presented by Henry IV. to Venice, and jealously guarded by her, be now given back. Thus Venice gained her point on all sides. The Count of Lille was banished from the territory of the Republic, and on the 15th April 1796, at three o’clock in the afternoon, he wended his way from Verona to seek in the direction of the Tyrol for the shelter and safety that were no longer to be afforded him beside the banks of the Adige, and where for twenty months he had enjoyed a calm, if not a real home. Nor did Venice forego her possession of the princely gift bestowed on her by Henry of Navarre. That suit of armour is to be seen to this day at the arsenal at Venice, though the sword which belonged to it was stolen in 1797, and not the least clue exists as to where it is now to be found. To return however to Verona.
The occupation of the town by the French was of short duration, for the Austrian troops under General Wurmser swept down on the valley of the Adige the very next month, and entered the town the 30th of July. Their stay however was also brief. The French returned as conquerors on August 8, and the victories of Arcole and Rivole confirmed them in their possession. They were not beloved by the people of Verona, of whom the greater part considered themselves still subject to Venice, and resented the military occupation foisted on them by Napoleon. What brought matters to a climax is unknown, but on the evening of April 17, the first shot was fired, and the Veronese rose up in arms against the French. A very wholesale massacre ensued, though the assertion that the inhabitants of Verona spared none of their foes, and even fired on the hospitals, slaughtering both sick and wounded in their fury, is probably an exaggeration. Fighting, firing, cannonading, the ringing of bells to call to arms went on for three whole days. French troops came hurrying in to the defence of the French, who poured a ceaseless rain of bullets on to the town from the forts, till the Veronese had no choice but to surrender. The Venetian authorities commenced the negotiations for ceding the town, and on April 27 the French again took possession of Verona without—and to their honour be it said—this time insulting the vanquished or abusing of their victory. The “Pâques Véronaises,” the Veronese Vespers, as this rising and massacre has been styled, may be considered in a twofold light. It may either be looked upon as the only effort made to uphold the dying power of Venice; or it may be reckoned as a useless waste of blood and treasure. It certainly did not tend to conciliate the French towards the inhabitants of Verona; and it gave Bonaparte an excuse for avenging the blood of his soldiers—an excuse he was not the man to forget. Heavy taxes were laid on the city; citizens of renown and high degree were executed; and wherever tyranny and oppression were possible they were indulged in freely.
The French yoke became so obnoxious that when in 1798 the town was handed over to the Austrians it seemed to the Veronese as though a stroke of good fortune had befallen them. The Austrian possession this time lasted till the peace of Luneville, early in 1800, when the city was divided between the French and Austrians, the French retaining the half on the right bank of the Adige, the Austrians reserving that on the left bank. This condition of affairs lasted till 1805, when the whole town was declared to be French, and when Napoleon caused himself to be proclaimed king of Italy, appointing Eugène de Beauharnais as his viceroy. In 1814 Verona again changed hands, being placed once more under the Austrian dominion, after Napoleon was fallen from his high estate, and when the might and determination of England had stopped him from enslaving and oppressing the greater part of Europe.
For many years Verona belonged to Austria. The Lombard-Veneto kingdom, ruled over by the Archduke Rainer, brought outward peace to the country from which it took its name, though the longing to expel the foreigner and create a united and independent kingdom of Italy was growing and developing in the heart of every true patriot throughout the Peninsula. This longing took shape in 1848, when the war of independence was begun. The hopes of freedom and unification centred round Charles Albert and the small kingdom of Piedmont, and at the outset fortune smiled on the gallant undertaking. The Austrians however were not to be driven lightly out of the country; they reconquered Milan; possessed themselves anew of the “Veneto”; and inflicted a severe defeat on the Piedmontese army at Novara (March 23, 1849). No sooner were they firmly established again in Verona than they set to work to restore the fortifications and build new ones all around and about the town. They converted it into a fortress of the very first rank, and made certain that from the great quadrilateral—formed of Verona, Mantua, Legnano, and Peschiera—they had a base of operations which would render them impregnable against any attack. And indeed it seemed as though Austrian rule was fixed for all time in the North of Italy. Plots and intrigues, it is true, were constantly being formed, but they collapsed without accomplishing their aim, and were never sufficiently serious to unsettle the ruling powers.
It was not till the year 1859 that the patriotic hopes which had dawned more than eleven years previously began again to see the light, though the perfect day was not to be reached even then. Napoleon III., Emperor of the French, did all that in him lay at that period to help his ally Victor Emanuel II. to the possession of his entire realm. The peace of Villafranca, however, put to flight the hopes that Solferino and S. Martino had formed, and though a part of the Veronese territory was restored to Italy, the town itself and much of the province remained subject to Austria. This state of things lasted till 1866, when the Prussians became the allies of Italy, and the Austrians were finally driven out of the Peninsula. The great battle of Sadowa, resulting in the peace of Vienna (October 3, 1866), settled definitely the vexed question as to the rights of ownership, and on the 16th of the same month the Italian army entered Verona in triumph. Far different must have been the feelings with which the Austrians quitted it. True, the town did not stand on their native soil, nor was the language spoken therein their mother tongue. But years of possession had endeared it to them; they had guarded it with unceasing love and care; they had made it one of the finest fortresses of Europe. Now all was to be changed. They must hand it over to the young and newly-formed kingdom of Italy, and who could assure them that all would be well with the town in other and inexperienced hands? Time alone was to furnish the answer.
On November 18th, 1866, King Victor Emanuel II. and his sons Humbert and Amedeus of Savoy came to Verona. The day following they were present at a great concourse of people held in the amphitheatre. An enthusiastic welcome awaited them; the national joy burst spontaneously from thousands of spectators, proving the affection of the Veronese for their rightful princes, and convincing the king and his children of the love and loyalty that existed for them in the grand old city of Verona la Degna.
CHAPTER VI
Men of Letters—School of Painting
A LOVE of letters and a regard for men of learning has ever been a marked characteristic throughout the history of Verona, and stamped the early and after days of her existence with a special and distinctive note.
The first name on a long and honoured roll is that of Valerius Catullus, who was born at Verona about B.C. 84. As all classical students know he owned a villa at Sirmione, where the ruins of an old mansion are pointed out as the abode of the “tenderest of Roman poets nineteen hundred years ago”—the poet who might well be called the Heine of his age.